vamp_watcher (vamp_watcher) wrote in free_form2, @ 2008-07-01 21:08:00 |
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Current mood: | working |
Current music: | Violence Fetish - Disturbed |
The Last Loose End
Things were finally setting into place – even if the Elders felt it was taking too long. Epimetheus was amazed how vampires so old could be so impatient. It wasn’t like they were on their deathbeds or anything.
All that mattered to the vampire was that what he paid Grace to do had been done. The child had been found and the Slayer murdered. Epimetheus took great joy in learning of Samantha’s demise, even if some part of him was a little jealous. He hoped to one day kill a Slayer of his own, and one as twisted as Samantha seemed like the perfect candidate.
Only problem was, Grace deserved that kill, not Epimetheus. He realized that, and used that fact to his – and the Order of Zeus’ – advantage. With Samantha gone, their chances of securing the Chosen Child and seeing the fruition of the prophecy were that much better.
Epimetheus sighed. He would’ve preferred to meet somewhere he could get a drink, but he understood the need for relative privacy. The vampire checked his watch, glancing from his rooftop just off the Vegas Strip. He didn’t feel terribly comfortable out here, what with civilization seemingly crumbling around him.
Portals pushing dimensional boundaries, humans staying home because they knew of the vampires – Epimetheus didn’t like it, and he wanted nothing more than to just give Grace the money and be gone … before some self-righteous wingbat with a 2x4 got a hold of him.
Having gotten Deanna more or less comfortable, Grace had reluctantly left her hotel to meet up with Epithemus and snip the last loose end of her business with the cult. 'Bad mood' didn't begin to do justice to how she felt right now. She could feel the new scar twinging as she climbed the last of the stairs to the roof, and when she stepped out of the stairwell, she could smell smoke from a fire that had broken out down on the street.
"Smells like somebody's throwin' a barbecue," she remarked to the back of the other vampire's head. "You by yourself?"
She checked what she could see of the roof, her sharp eyes adjusting quickly to the dimness. They seemed to be alone. Good. She just wanted to get this done. "You got my money?"
Epimetheus tossed the briefcase to Grace’s feet, smiling at the knowledge of the five million dollars housed inside. The deal was five million bucks if Grace secured the Chosen Child and killed the Slayer, and Epimetheus was nothing if not a man of his word.
“The chaos is rather … palpable,” he offered, pointing behind his shoulder just as he heard a woman’s blood-curtling scream on the street below. “Which normally, I don’t mind – but it’s annoying how everyone seems to know now.
“Nothing more humiliating than getting chased down the sidewalk by a granny with a cross.”
"Try havin' some psycho jam a piece of wood through your chest," Grace muttered, crouching down to pick up the case. "Or seein' somebody half-stomped to death by some self-righteous fuckin' humans."
She picked up the heavy object and set it on top of a broken air conditioner. The latches clicked as she disengaged them, and she opened the case to stare at the contents in silence for a minute. Five. Million. Dollars.
"This is a lot of fuckin' money," she whispered, nodding almost to herself. She looked over at Epimetheus, adjusting her posture slightly. "So we're clear after this? And you kept my name out of it with your buddies? I don't need any more shit after this."
“The Elders are too busy being impatient to know what’s going on,” Epimetheus countered with an annoyed shrug. “They don’t even know the Vessel’s been destroyed yet.”
Nor did the Elders know Epimetheus paid an outside party five million large to kill the Slayer. If the prophecy was to come to pass, the Order couldn’t afford a loose cannon like Samantha fucking things up. And what little interaction Epimetheus had with the Slayer told him that not even her own son would’ve been safe in her presence.
Some good the prophecy would’ve been if the Vessel killed its own child.
The corners of Grace's mouth lifted into a smile she almost meant. "Well, you know me, I'm a professional. I like to be thorough, to make sure all the t's are dotted and the i's are crossed."
She reached into her jacket as she finished speaking and drew the revolver she'd bought from Joseph a month earlier and used it to blow out Epimetheus' left kneecap. Then his right one, just for balance. The powerful gun kicked in her hand, and she steadied it, listening to the sound of the shots be swallowed by the noise of sirens and general mayhem down in the streets.
"You almost got me killed, you fucktard," she snarled, switching over to demon-face because she didn't feel like pretending to be something she wasn't right then. Advancing on the other vamp, she pointed the gun at his face, kicking him hard in one of his shattered kneecaps.
"I really hate it when they almost kill me."
Well, that was … unexpected. Not to mention really painful.
Logically, Epimetheus knew the gunshots to his knees wouldn’t kill him. But as he dropped to the ground of the rooftop, covered in dust and dirt and soot and who knew what else, a panic came over the vampire regardless, one that only heightened when Grace kicked one of the knees she had just shot.
The pain was nearly unbearable, and Epimetheus could do nothing but lay on the ground and writhe as blood trickled from his legs. He stared at Grace as she stood over him, wondering just what in the world possessed her to do this.
“You … you agreed to this,” he countered, struggling to find breath he really didn’t need. “The threat of dusting was implied when you took our deal.”
"Well, I changed the terms. Guess I forgot to mention that."
Grace put a foot on the fallen vampire's crotch, pressed down, adding more weight as she watched his face. "You think I'm your monkey, is that it? Some kind of Goddamned wind-up toy you can put a key in and turn it until you get the outcome you want?" More pressure, the heel of her boot digging into his sack, and she shook her head, an almost amused expression crossing her face.
"No, baby. That ain't how it works."
She shot him again, in the upper thigh this time, then took her foot off of his balls. She leaned down over him and smacked him across the face with the Eagle's heavy barrel. "We're going to have a little lesson now, about what 'pissed' really means."
All the nights Epimetheus imagined Grace between this legs, this certainly wasn’t the way he’d envisioned it. Even as the pain seared up and down his spine, combined with yet another bullet hole in his leg, the vampire was glad he was undead and unable to reproduce.
Because if he could, any hope of having children was gone now.
Blood poured from Epimetheus’ nostril when Grace smacked him with the gun, and for all his strength, the tattooed vampire couldn’t crawl away or anything. He was pretty much stuck on this rooftop, having his ass handed to him by someone who he was quickly learning wasn’t so stable herself.
“You’re almost as bad as the Slayer was,” he spat, his hand covering the wound on his thigh. “Only thing making her worse was the fact that she was still human. Give her fangs and I can’t tell the difference between you two.”
"The difference between me and her is I'm a lot smarter than she was," Grace snapped, straddling Epimetheus. "A lot smarter than you, too, Fat Boy."
She looked up at the dark night sky, pondering how long to make this last. She had to get back to Deanna, for one thing, so it wouldn't do to take all night with it. She wiped at the side of her face with her free hand, then tapped the other vampire's jaw with the end of the gun barrel.
"Open wide," she coaxed, a smile like a razorblade sneaking across her face. "I can make it quick or I can make it slow. It makes no fuckin' difference to me."
Did she realize pulling the trigger with the barrel in Epimetheus’ mouth likely wouldn’t kill him? He was sure Grace did – she seemed to be enjoying this way too much, and though the vampire got the impression she had other places to be, something told him she would have no issue taking a little time and making sure this hurt.
Right now, the prophecy and the Order of Zeus were the last things on Epimetheus’ mind. He was sort of preoccupied with the gunshot wounds littering his lower extremities, not to mention the fact that his family jewels were likely damaged beyond repair.
Not that Epimetheus was looking to reproduce in the future, but raping his victims would certainly be a lot more difficult now.
“So … what?” he offered in spite of himself. “You kill me and that’s that? The Order isn’t going anywhere.”
"God, you're such a ..."
Grace leaned down into his face, her fangs an inch from his nose. "Without the kid, the Order is a pile of shit. And if you disappear, there's nothing linking me to his whereabouts. Y'see, I changed my mind. You pricks don't need help to fuck up the world. The world's fucked as it is. So ... the kid goes bye-bye, no prophecy, no planet going boom."
She slapped him lightly, then dug the gun into his left temple. "Am I clear yet, fucktard?"
Epimetheus cringed at all the pain coursing through his lifeless body, but not once did he scream. He wouldn’t give this raging cunt the pleasure of it. He felt the cold steel on the gun barrel against the side of his head, and knew having his brains splattered all over the rooftop would hurt like hell.
Wouldn’t kill him, though. The blessing and the curse of being undead.
“It must suck,” he spoke in a calm tone, as if he were at peace with things, “not living for a higher purpose. Just waking up every night and wandering aimlessly through the huddled masses.
“You can kill me all you want – in fact, I’m fairly certain you will. But that doesn’t matter, because my cause was right. My cause was just. Non-believers like you do nothing to sway my or the Order’s resolve.
“Zeus will again have his day … this? Everything going on right now? Crazy, yes … even a little fun. But it’s not the end – not by a long shot. So go ahead, kill me. But when Cory Blanchard ends the world in two decades, I hope you have a front-row seat for it all.”
"Mmm. Well, maybe." Grace sounded thoughtful, and she removed the gun from Epimetheus' temple to put it into his right ear instead. "But twenty years is a while. Who knows? Somebody might come up with a cure for what ails the kid. Provided that you're even right, which ... let's face it, you're batting about a thousand at being a fuck-up."
The gun went off again, and blood and brain matter sprayed as the slug passed through the other vampire's skull. "I always wanted to see a head shot not kill someone. It’s amazing what our bodies can endure after we die."
She rose to her feet, noticing a small clump of hair and scalp stuck to her pants leg. She picked it off, tossed it onto the already filthy roof, then stepped over the twitching body to look for something to finish the job with.
The loose ends were almost neatly tied up. Only the boy was left. That meant she needed a new plan.
Even if Epimetheus had wanted to scream when the bullet raced through his head, he wouldn’t have been able to. Though all the nerve endings and cells and everything the bullet damaged were already dead, the mess the bullet left behind was … not pretty.
The vampire could do nothing but twitch on the ground, blood soaking nearly his entire body. Only about half his face remained, and the tattoo marking him as a member of the Order of Zeus was long gone, as was the flesh it was burned into.
Still, Epimetheus welcomed death. Not necessarily to be rid of the pain, but because then he would’ve given his unlife to the cause. The Elders would likely mourn the fall of one of their most faithful followers, but they too would realize his sacrifice was for the greater good.
The Chosen Child would do their bidding, he just knew it.
Grace found a few splintered boards piled up in a far corner of the roof, and on her way back she had the beginnings of an idea. She'd have to check out a couple of things first, make sure everything was kosher, but if she was right -- and when wasn't she? -- the Order of Zeus would be left holding their dicks, both metaphorical and not.
She looked down at what was left of Epimetheus, then pushed the stake through his chest and into his heart. A mercy killing, of all things. She watched him turn to ash, the breeze picking up the remains and scattering them as if he'd never existed at all. People who fucked with her got dead, that was just how it was.
"I'll find the cure for what ails him. 'Cause I'm smarter than you."